


Hello color, goodbye shadows (See us)

by NeverlandHeart



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 23:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16649581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverlandHeart/pseuds/NeverlandHeart
Summary: He lets out a scoff and rolls his eyes but he’s grinning right back. “Alright, let’s do it, Thelma.”She lets out a squeak and hugs him tightly before letting him go and running towards her car. “Hurry up, Louise, the bank won’t rob itself!”Or,Julia Wicker wants to leave her mark on their small town, wants to be spontaneous, but she’s not doing it without Quentin.





	Hello color, goodbye shadows (See us)

**Author's Note:**

> So, I know Julia and Quentin are from New York, but in this story I decided to pretend that they aren’t.

Julia Ogden Wicker has never truly been a spontaneous person. She’s not the type to wake up one day with an idea and go through with it immediately, she likes to plan out every single detail, always making sure everything is perfect. But, Julia Ogden Wicker is eighteen and in less than three weeks she’ll be in New York with Quentin, finally out of their middle of nowhere, tiny town. She prefers to call it a cage, though, if she’s honest. 

She was valedictorian, perfect grades and perfect attendance. She was never popular, but she was also never unpopular, she was stuck in the middle somewhere. Her fellow classmates would wave at her and smile in the halls, and they’d also ignore her when she was with Quentin and he got shoved into lockers. People were nice, but they never crossed the line to friendship. Always in between, besides Quentin, of course. Julia thinks, if in ten years, someone asks about her in passing, maybe at a high school reunion, they’ll remember her, as the smart kid, the nice kid, the one who wasn’t plain enough to blend in, but who also wasn’t colorful enough to stand out. They’ll remember her, but they won’t _remember_ her. 

She’s never made her mark. She’s left fingerprints here and there, but she’s never made her _mark_. That’s changing tonight. She’s been thinking about this for a few days, and okay, thinking about being spontaneous isn’t spontaneous but she’s definitely stepping out of her comfort zone. She’s been balancing on a cliff on indecision all her life, thinking about every consequence and outcome that will come from any choice she makes. 

Tonight, she’s not just going to jump off the cliff. 

She’s going to fucking _dive_. 

* * *

And that’s how she finds herself at Quentin’s house, throwing pebbles at his window. She prays he’s not asleep. His sleeping schedule is abnormal, just like hers, but when Quentin does actually sleep, he sleeps like the dead. Finally, the light in his room turns on and she does a mini victory dance. She only has to wait a few seconds for the window to open and Quentin is poking his head out. “Jules?”

She beams up at him. “Come outside!” 

He raises his eyebrows at her but nods. “One sec.” 

A few minutes later, he walks out of the back door and over to her. He’s shivering slightly and it’s only when he zips up his jacket that she realizes she maybe should’ve worn warmer clothes. Oh well, nothing to be done about it now. “What are you doing here, J? It’s two in the morning.” 

She smirks at him and puts both her hands on his shoulders, shaking him slightly. “We’re going to go do something stupid.” 

He scrunches his nose up and she can’t help but giggle at his confusion. “Hear me out. We’re leaving for New York soon and I want to step out of my comfort zone, do something spontaneous and stupid, but I don’t wanna do it without my partner in crime. So?” 

He stares at her for a second and she can see the smile that wants to form. “Could we get arrested?” 

Julia contemplates his question for a moment before giving him her most innocent look, bringing up her hand and moving her thumb and pointer finger together to say ‘little bit’. 

He lets out a scoff and rolls his eyes but he’s grinning right back. “Alright, let’s do it, Thelma.” 

She lets out a squeak and hugs him tightly before letting him go and running towards her car. “Hurry up, Louise, the bank won’t rob itself!” 

Quentin laughs and slides into the passenger seat. “Okay, what are we doing?” 

She gives him a sly grin and passes him her bag. He gives her a look before unzipping it and he gapes at her. “Holy shit, J, seriously?” 

She giggles and tosses her bag in the backseat before becoming comically serious, looking into his eyes. “Holy shit, Q, seriously.” She parrots back his question, making it a statement while also searching his eyes for uncertainty. 

When he bursts into a fit of laughter, she beams and puts her car in drive. 

* * *

They drive for half an hour before she pulls into the parking lot of an abandoned building. She grabs her bag and gets out of her car, Quentin quickly following her. They walk into the alley next to the building and Julia grabs two bandanas from her bag, tying hers around her face and giving Quentin his, who does the same thing. She glances at him and notices his hands are shaking slightly. “We don’t have to do this, Quentin.” 

He breathes out and shakes his hands. “No. No, let’s do it.” 

Before she can ask if he’s sure, he’s grabbing a can of spray paint and shaking it.

* * *

Julia steps back and grins, proud of her work. She’s never been an artist, was never fluid enough for it, but this was easy. She smiles at the image of a sky, the blues and grays swirling together. 

And then she sees Quentin’s and her breath leaves her body. It’s two words, ‘see me’ in black surrounded by pink, purple, and blue. Quentin is staring at the ground, kicking lightly at the wall, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth. And, well, if she has ever questioned Quentin’s sexuality before, she’s definitely not now. “Q.” It comes out breathless and he looks at her, his hair glittery with color and Julia- 

Julia laughs. She can’t help it, it comes over her like a wave but Quentin immediately looks away from her, ashamed, and she rushes to fix her mistake. “No! No oh my god, I’m not laughing at that, that’s fucking incredible Quentin and I’m so proud of you.”

He slowly looks at her again, wary. “Then what’s so funny?” 

She grins and grabs a strand of his hair to show him. “You look like you just walked out of a circus.” 

He blinks at her slowly, realization dawning on his face before he laughs too. “You’re one to talk.” 

Julia quickly notices that her hands are covered in blue paint and she gasps. “Shit!” When she tries to wipe her hands on her shirt, he laughs harder. She glares at him and grabs the can of orange, shaking it before spraying it on her fingers and quickly wiping a line on his face before he even knows what’s happening. He gapes at her for a moment, while she laughs so hard she’s crying. “Your _face_!” Seconds later he’s laughing again too and it lasts for a long while until she notices the sun coming up. She quickly grabs her camera from her bag and snaps a picture, not waiting for it to develop to see if she needs to take another. 

“Fuck, c’mon. Let’s get out of here before we get arrested.” She takes his hand and pulls him towards her car. Before she lets go of his hand to unlock it, she squeezes once and looks at him. “For the record, I’ve always seen you, Quentin Coldwater.” She tucks a piece of hair behind his ear and he stands, stunned for a moment before getting in the passenger side. 

Fifteen minutes later, they’re almost back to his house and he’s sleeping, head against the window. The sunrise reflects around him, making the color in his hair even more obvious and as soon as she stops at a red light, she pulls out her polaroid camera again and snaps a photo of him, shaking it when it comes out. She smiles down at it, tucking it into the pocket of her jeans. This one is most certainly going in her book. 

As she looks at his sleeping form, the calm rise and fall of his chest, Julia realizes that while she needed this, this small act of rebellion, Quentin might just have needed it more. 

Unlike her, he had never been standing on the cliff. He had been shoved off by other people against his will long ago. Tonight though, like her, he had jumped, willingly this time, and for a minute she’s worried that she’s wrong, that maybe she had pushed him like all the others, but it quickly washes away when she remembers the look he had on his face, the sense of relief of no longer hiding. 

Maybe they had jumped together, but she hadn’t pushed him, she just held his hand on the way down. 

* * *

After she drops him off, and gets home, she goes up to her room and pulls out her photo album and a sharpie. There’s two pictures, one of their art and her picture of Quentin. She thinks for a minute before writing ‘we were here’ under the first one, and debates writing ‘bisexual pride’ or, ‘the day he came out’, before simply writing, ‘sunrise’ under the other. She doesn’t need to write anything particular under the picture to make it a day she’ll remember always. 

When she gets in bed, she looks at the calendar and smiles. Two weeks until New York, until college. The first day of the rest of their lives. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen, the one thing she can’t plan. But that’s okay, she thinks, as long as she has Quentin by her side always. 

* * *

Now, almost six years later, the photograph is aged slightly, but she doesn’t really need it. She breathes in shakily, praying her gut feeling is right. She stares at the wall, surprised there’s no other graffiti or that theirs has been painted over. And it makes her heart sink, because it means she had been wrong. She drove hours for nothing. She takes a step back, wills herself not to cry. 

And then see she’s it, in the corner of her eye. There’s something farther down in the alley, and she can’t help but sprint towards it. She has to move a few boxes out of the way to see the complete work, and her heart catches in her throat. It’s there, clear as day, in bright purple. 

‘You saw me, now come find me’. 

She lets out a wet laugh, tears streaming down her cheeks. She can’t tell how long it’s been there but she knows it’s fairly new. “You got it, Q.” She jogs back to her car, a new determination burning in her veins. Before unlocking it, she shoots Margo a quick text to let her know she’s pretty sure Quentin is close by, with Eliot. Or, at least, the thing in Eliot’s body. 

If she could see him before he saw himself, when he tried his best to blend in with the shadows, when he was invisible to everyone but her, when he didn’t want to be seen, then, well, she’s pretty damn sure she can find him when he without a doubt wants to be found. 

She glances back to the wall once more and takes in a calm, slow breath, trying to slow her heartbeat. “I’m coming, Quentin.” She grips the steering wheel and exhales. “I’m coming.” 

She reaches down and rubs her thumb over the picture of him and the sunrise. “I just hope I’m not too late.” 


End file.
